In conjunction with the ChinaJoy 2013 conference in Shanghai, new figures have been released about the size of its mobile games market.

According to the China Gaming Industry Report, the number of mobile gamers in the country is up 119 percent year-on-year to 171 million.

In terms of revenue, the first six months of 2013 have seen total mobile game sales of RMB 2.5 billion (around $412 million).

This is growth of 100 percent compared to the first half of 2012.

Good and bad

While mobile games' share of the entire Chinese games market - which is dominated by PC/online games - is small, it's growing fast.

The China Gaming Industry Report reckoned mobile games now account for 7.5 percent of the total Chinese games market, up from 5.1 percent in 2012.

But while the sector as a whole is booming, times aren't necessarily easy for developers.

The amount of competition in the market is so extreme that the majority of companies will fail, LineKong CEO Wang Feng told the China Digital Entertainment Congress.

Shanda CEO Xiangdong Zhang said Chinese developers need to up the quality of their games if they are to succeed, especially in global markets.

He also argued there needs to be a better balance of risk and reward between developers and the big platforms and distribution stores that dominate China's Android-focused mobile game market.

"The developer takes too much risk, but the platform companies have a smaller risk, so there is a conflict between them," he commented.